PROJECT-BASED LEARNING ‘SANS FRONTIÈRES’ Béatrice Atherton School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies The University of Queensland

1. A diversified curriculum for a changing context 2. Project-Based Learning as a pedagogical approach  Underpinnings  Objectives  PBL and Web Co-elearning of languages: an international project for Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP)  UQ – ICL project design  e-Legal : maximising learning through collaboration 4. Conclusions

New study paths Global knowledge- based networked economy Increased student mobility

To operate effectively in their chosen professional environment students need to be able to:  Collaborate  Negotiate  Reflect  Research  Analyse  Communicate All skills fostered by PBL

What is PBL? ‘A systematic teaching method that engages students in learning essential knowledge and life- enhancing skills through an extended, student- influenced inquiry process structured around complex, authentic questions and carefully designed products and tasks.’ PBL Online (Buck Institute for Education)

 Active learning or ‘Learning by Doing’ (Dewey, Freinet)  Constructivism (Piaget, Vygotsky)

As defined by Bru & No (1987)  Management: learning to work with the constraints of a given environment  ‘Therapeutic’: increasing motivation through the completion of meaningful tasks  Didactic: making use of existing knowledge to build new knowledge and competencies  Social: developing collaborative skills  Political: community building

 PBL tasks involve exchanging information, giving and receiving feedback, sharing existing knowledge, challenging others’ contribution, engaging in collaborative tasks, negotiating a solution to problems and in doing so closely align with effective online interaction (McLoughlin & Luca 2000)  Web 2.0 technologies are largely based on a socioconstructivist framework and add a new dimension to PBL by facilitating collaboration between learners from diverse settings (local, national and international)

1. Learner proficiency: B2/C1 on CEFR scale 2. Size of cohort:  2010 Legal course: 29 Law students (13 UQ, 16 ICL)  2011 Business course: 61 with a mix of disciplines (32 UQ, 29 ICL) 3. Students work in groups of 4 to Duration of project: 6 to 8 weeks 5. Assessment: participation, progressive assessment (online tasks), final report (including videoconference presentation). 6. Web 2.0 technologies: Blackboard (blog, wiki, document exchange tool, , virtual classroom); whole class videoconferencing system (MOVI & Polycom)

French/ Australian joint venture Feasibility study ICL French company FIABLE French/English for Business Simulation Project UQ Australian Company

Comparative study on negotiated topic Legal knowledge & concepts Legal Reasoning Legal research skills

UQ student to her French partners (blog post): Salut C., et bienvenue au groupe 1 :) [….] À la suite des propos de N. - nous avons lu ce que tu as ajouté sur le blog sur la commission des droits de l'homme. J'ai fait des petits recherches et bien qu'elle existe toujours, cette commission n'est pas une grande concerne à notre gouvernement. On ne consulte pas les directives de la commission quand on fait passer les lois, et il n'y a plus de deux ou trois articles dans les nouvelles chaque année sur les travaux de la commission. À mon avis, elle n'est pas si importante que la Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen en France, et ça sera difficile à faire un rapport complet à ce sujet. En même temps, une comparaison entre les droits de l'homme dans chaque pays par rapport aux clandestins sera assez intéressante. N. a déjà dit quelques questions qu'on peut discuter à ce sujet, et il y a beaucoup plus concernant la politique intérieure et aussi dans la contexte internationale. Mais bon, si vous n'êtes pas d'accords avec ce sujet, dites-nous ce que vous en pensez et on peut réfléchir un peu. À plus tard :)

Hi C. ! Welcome to group 1 [….] Following N.’s comments the other day we read your post on the blog concerning the Human Rights Commission. I did a little bit of research and although it still exists this Commission is not that important for our government. When passing laws one doesn’t need to refer to the Commission’s directives and there are only two or three articles in the News each year which relate to it. I don’t think it matters as much as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and it will be difficult to write a long report on this topic. At the same time a comparison on human rights in each country focusing on illegal migrants would be quite interesting. N. raised some questions we could discuss and there is a lot more [on this topic] in domestic and international politics. Still, if you don’t agree with this topic let us know and we can think about it a bit more. See you later

A three-stage task:  Students are given two legal cases to read one from each country. They prepare a short presentation in their native language explaining how to analyse a case in their legal system and anticipate a judge’s decision. They also read the other case and prepare questions in their target language.  They meet in the virtual classroom, give their presentation and answer their partners’ questions.  Each group then writes a summary in their target language setting out the steps required to analyse a case in the target legal system and receives feedback from their partners and teacher.

 On completion of the course 15 ICL e-Legal students reported on their learning experience through a questionnaire (Griffiths 2010)  Ongoing research project investigating students’ learning experience and the contribution of PBL to LSP learning outcomes.

% Strongly agree AgreeNeither agree nor disagree DisagreeStrongly disagree I enjoyed participating in the elearning class The elearning class provided a different learning experience which I found useful I would choose the option of doing an elearning class again I felt I missed out by not taking ‘traditional’ English lessons

% Strongly agree AgreeNeither agree nor disagree DisagreeStrongly disagree Being in charge of my own learning has encouraged deeper research I felt comfortable collaborating with my fellow students Collaborating with other students has encouraged deeper research

1. Students’ evaluation pointing to positive learning outcomes and a need for clarification of course objectives. 2. Based on these preliminary results and teachers’ observations normalisation of the approach in LSP programs requires: AA firm focus on pedagogy not technology TThe establishment of stable partnerships which may be facilitated by the creation of virtual hubs (O’Dowd 2010) AAn assessment of institutional constraints to facilitate the integration of projects into the curriculum. AAn adequate match between learners (language proficiency as well as discipline knowledge) AA common platform with carefully selected technologies (Bax 2011) THANK YOU